I sense a disturbance in the force.
This thread is for people to tell me what they think is going on, going wrong, and what they think we should do about it. I’m listening.
Lizzie
Squawk box
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911
What is the goal of scientific reseach? Finding the truth or what?
I think this issue is well overdue at TSZ. I have quoted professor Lewontin’s well known statement on another OP that received some mixed feelings. To me, at least, it sheds doubt as to how science is done vs how it is supposed to be done…
Judge it for yourself:
Squawk Box Poll
I offer some polls for those who wish to express a view without having to post a comment in the Squawk Box thread. The first two are single-choice, the third is multiple choice. They are open to registered members. There is an option to add another answer. Continue reading
Abusing Bayes
I am hoping that some members here are familiar with Bayes’ Theorem and willing to share their knowledge or at the very least interested enough in the topic to do some research and share their opinions.
– What is Bayes Theorem
– What can it tell us
– How does it work
– Can Bayes’ Theorem be abused and if so how
Theistic Evolution – The Judas Iscariot Effect?
I have always been puzzled by the theistic evolution belief system. It makes absolutely no sense to me at all as it clearly seems to contradict both theism and evolution – the two fundamental beliefs it is supposedly be based on…
Why? Continue reading
What has TSZ accomplished? 7 years and counting
I have recently realized that The Skeptical Zone blog has had its 7th year anniversary…
Since Dr. Liddle has return, at least temporarily, I thought it could be a great opportunity to evaluate what the goal of TSZ was, when it opened for business over 7 years ago, and whether such goal(s) have been accomplished, if any…
Here is what Dr. Liddle’s mission statement was in the introductory web page:
” My name is Elizabeth Liddle, and I started this site to be a place where people could discuss controversial positions about life, the universe and everything with minimal tribal rancour (pay no attention to the penguins….) Continue reading
Is Peaceful Science carefully (enough) scripting its politicking with the Freedom From Religion Foundation?
What role does the Freedom from Religion Foundation play in the evolution, creation and intelligent design conversation?
I ask for feedback on this here because it would seem that one of the main ‘partnerships’ at what Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass calls ‘Peaceful Science’ (his description is scientistically utopian, but let’s leave that aside), appears to be mainly a politically convenient one between Dr. Swamidass and an atheist named Patrick, who is a representative for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. If was difficult to figure this out because as a non-USAmerican citizen, that organisation is off my national radar. Continue reading
walto’s paper as a failed argument against Cartesian skepticism
TSZ commenter walto published a paper this year in the Journal of Philosophy entitled Epistemic Closure, Home Truths, and Easy Philosophy. Unfortunately, the paper isn’t free — if you want to read it, you’ll either need to pay for it yourself or get it via institutional access (if you’re fortunate enough to have that.)
This post violates site rules
Statement from administrator team: This post is in violation of site rules, that we should discuss the message, not the poster of the message.
In the interest of transparency, we are making the post public. We want to be clear that the administrator team does not agree with the accusations made in the post. Our initial reaction was to make the post private, to give us time to review the situation. We are now making it public again, but comments are closed for this topic. If the original author of this post requests that we make it private once again, that will be considered.
We have kept Elizabeth informed of what we are doing. And she has given one brief email response, which I am taking as tacit approval of our initial reaction.
Neil Rickert.
Original title: Swamidass caught lying at PeacefulScience.org
If you need some entertainment, here’s a story that follows a familiar Uncommon Descent plot line:
Charlatan lies; charlatan gets caught; charlatan digs the hole deeper; gets caught some more; and charlatan, in desperation, finally bans the messenger.
In this case the charlatan is Joshua Swamidass, the blog is PeacefulScience.org, and the ban is for a week, not permanent. But it’s basically the same old UD story.
It starts here. I hope the comments don’t get deleted. Given the recent censorship kerfuffle there, Swamidass will be feeling pressure not to delete them. But the evidence is pretty damning, and it will be painful for him to leave them in place. We’ll see what happens.
Carter, Lee, Sanford’s ICC 2018 Adam and Eve paper, Congratulations Bill Basener
Bill Basener (a participant here) co-authored a paper with John Sanford. He was given the honor of delivering a KEYNOTE ADDRESS at an international SECULAR biology conference. A video of his presentation is available in a link inside my write up of his presentation below. He alluded to some of the helpful input from his critics at TheSkepticalZone in his talk:
http://crev.info/2018/07/keynote-speech-falsifies-darwinism/
John Sanford is sort of the “Papa John” of creationist genetics. It is customary for the leader of a research group to be listed as the last author in a publication. That convention is seen in a variety of papers and books such as Rupe & Sanford; Basener & Sanford; Carter, Lee & Sanford; Montanyez, Fernandez, Marks & Sanford; and let’s not forget the Legendary High Velocity Team of Klein, Wolf, Wu & Sanford that permanently ensured the infusion of intelligently designed genes into a sizable fraction of Genetically Modified Organisms on planet Earth.
And perhaps one day in the distant future there will be a paper, “Cordova & Sanford”! 🙂
Below is a link of a paper from Papa John’s team about Adam and Eve which will be presented this week, July 29,2018 – August 1, 2018 at the 8th International Conference on Creationism
ICC 2018, mtDNA hetero and homoplasmy
In the link below are the abstracts with links to the papers presented at the International Conference on Creationism 2018 in Pittsburgh, PA July 29-August 1, 2018. Those presenting are professors at Christian colleges, professors already expelled from secular colleges, or professors at secular colleges who (by God’s grace) can’t be expelled. 🙂
http://www.creationicc.org/icc18_abstracts.php
A topic I will raise among the population geneticists there (John C. Sanford, Rob Carter, Nathaniel Jeanson, and others) is the issue of heteroplasmy in mtDNA as they are presenting on these topics.
Mature human cells have 100,000 to 600,000 mitochondrion. So how can a cell be mostly homoplasmic yet have mtDNA mutations that are reflected in lineages whereby an individual has a mostly homoplasmic mtDNA that enable us to identify the 7 daughters of Eve (to quote Oxford Geneticist Bryan Sykes).
Continue reading
Does embryo development process require ID?
Jonathan Wells, who is an embryologist and an ID advocate, has a very interesting paper and video on the issue of ontogeny (embryo development) and the origins of information needed in the process of cell differentiation…
Wells thinks that a major piece of information needed in the process of embryo development can’t be explained by DNA, and therefore may require an intervention of an outside source of information, such as ID/God…
If you don’t want to watch the whole video, starting at about 40 min mark is just as good but especially at 43 min.
How much Adam could an uneducated evangelical Adam if an uneducated evangelical could Adam Adam?
For those interested in discussions of evolutionism, creationism, Intelligent Design as they impact science, philosophy and theology/worldview in society and education today, please find below a small piece of news.
In short, IDism isn’t really all that hard to counter. Most of you have done it here already countless times against IDists. As for me, I’m batting 100% against IDists in person and 99.5% against IDists online. Only Cameron Wybrow in Canada is the lone holdout. I have questions for every IDist that CSC’s John West would (not) ‘expel’ me for!
The DI is afraid of me because I saw it on the inside. But who could ever see the inside of quality, rigorous, ‘good science’ that is done ‘peacefully’, when there is no institutional centre currently available to hold such an abstract utopia, even better than IDism?
No, what is really difficult is to counter IDists who are actually TEists & ECists also at the same time. This combination is much more difficult than just arguing here with lowbrow IDists or mainly heterodox theists. And this, folks, is where you will find them: https://discourse.peacefulscience.org
Vincent J. Torley is already there and he has an offer to co-author his first scientific publication since his PhD with the site host. So it can’t be too hard to handle for TSZers since Vincent is now officially (yet?) a moderator at TSZ. So that’s a perfect introduction for you to show Peaceful Science what you think about their “Science of Adam.”
When the California-born & accented Dr. Swamidass gets the money, as he is already asking for at Peaceful Science, then let me assure the vast majority atheists here they had better be ready to buckle their belts in the North American “creation war” as Swamidass repeatedly calls it. Why? A recycled neologism known as “Genealogical Adam” is coming to a theatre near you & guess what: if your worldview doesn’t like it, then Swamidass cares. http://peacefulscience.org
Swamidass openly welcomes atheists at Peaceful Science. He even prefers them over thoughtful religious critics that don’t play ball his way, displaying why he was not long ago banned by Deborah Haarsma at BioLogos for refusing to bow to former BioLogos biology-lead and Haarsma’s current darling, Dennis Venema, who has blindly followed his Canadian counterpart Denis Lamoureux into becoming what Swamidass calls “no Adam Christians.” Let’s just say the evangelicals at BioLogos and Peaceful Science aren’t getting along right now and with the ASA meeting about to come up with “The Science of Adam” on the agenda, fireworks could result.
It’s almost as if ‘ideologically self-contradictory’ is something evangelical Protestants of the Swamidass, Venema, Lamoureux, BioLogos-variety deny they ever could be accused of themselves.
BioLogos banned Swamidass for claiming what IDist Ann Gauger did: “We could have come from two … A bottleneck of two [A&E] that is older than 500,000 years ago is possible … based on analysis of the genetic data”. What do the biological scientists here say about that?
So, Swamidass is busy preparing either a noble or an ignoble (depending on who you are) place in history by intentionally relativising Adam and Eve with Genealogical Adam. Will anyone ask him what his qualifications for becoming, finally in these previous @18 months, a ‘scientific genealogist’ as he is now claiming to be?
Go to this site, but ask him nicely. Atheists can be nice, good people about Adam and Eve most times too.
Help the gliding snake grow wings
Evolution “…is as much a fact as the heat of the sun…”– Richard Dawkins
Unfortunately, what evolution no doubt is missing to be such a fact is the actual proof that evolution can do what its supporters claim it has done and can do…
Simply pointing to a fully developed organism and saying – “evolution did” – is just as good a claim as saying – “God did it, or ID must have done it”- unless there is some kind of falsifiability for the claims…Otherwise, such claims remain in the realm of optimism bias, blind faith, or simply science-fiction…and give science bad name at the same time…
Nested Hierarchies (Tree of life)
Moderator’s remark: this post is long enough to need a “more” tag. But the wordpress editor will only allow me to add that at the very beginning or the very end. So here it is at the very beginning.
Why does the soul need the brain?
Why does the soul need the brain seems like a logical question especially in the context of the belief held by the leading ID proponent of the Discovery Institute Michael Egnor. He has written extensively on the theme of the immaterial soul that, in his view, is an independent entity, separate of the human body. What Dr. Egnor consistently fails to acknowledge is the obvious connection or interdependence between a functioning brain and self-awareness or consciousness. I wrote about it here.
If certain parts of human brain are damaged or disabled, just like in case of general anesthesia, the human brain loses the sense of consciousness or self-awareness either permanently or temporarily. The immaterial soul fails to make up for the damaged or disabled brain…
Can the future affect the past?
According to Quantum Mechanics future can affect the past.
There are many names for this “QM weirdness”; retro-causality, time flying backwards and so on…
Experiment Shows Future Events Affect The Past
There are just as many interpretations of this supposed weirdness that QM presents scientists with…Some say that we don’t know enough about TIME…Others say there is no such thing as time; at least on quantum level…
Though initially opposed or uncomfortable to with the problems QM presented him with, Einstein, just before he died, made the following statement about TIME itself.
Einstein once wrote, in a letter to comfort the widow of a recently deceased friend, “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
The Death Evolution
Death has been on everyone’s mind at one time or another… It’s unavoidable…
Some are fascinated by death; mainly the possibility of better afterlife. Some, or the great majority of people, are frightened by it. It seems the unknown of after-death is one of the main factors causing many to tremble…
However, it turns out that Craig Venter, the pioneer of the human genome project and the supposed creator of artificial life, turned his attention and efforts toward decoding death… here
It seems obvious Venter believes that death is be caused by genetics; some genetic mutations that could be fixed and we could live forever, otherwise he wouldn’t be digging in the genome looking to fix the death code…
The Simulation Hypothesis
This video outlines and explores the philosophical and scientific history of the idealism vs materialism, and shows how the scientific evidence much better fits idealism – meaning, that everything we experience as physical reality is the result of the processing of information via a nonphysical mind (outside of space-time). I think the big problem with this perspective is that it not only challenges various forms of materialism; it also challenges many religious perspectives – at least in terms of what the fundamental nature of our existence is.
IMO, one of the interesting implications (not expressed in the video) is that if what we actually experience is indeed generated by mental processing, feedback loops could be a normal, even essential aspect of our experience. IOW, if you believe in and process information from a particular ideological/personal perspective (we all do), it may be that the experiential reality you encounter is actually being physically (not just psychologically) sustained and supported as a result of having those views and beliefs.
One wonders what the limitations would be if our “reality” experience is determined by mental processing of information (both conscious and subconscious).
What is the purpose of life?
The question of the purpose of life has preoccupied philosophers, poets, thinkers and the like, for thousands of years. Clearly, it’s a tricky one. It is surprising that pharmaceutical companies have not addressed this issue… yet… 🙂
From the materialistic/atheistic/evolutionary perspective, the answer to this question is clear: Since the universe and life are the products of purposeless, random processes, life itself has no purpose or meaning either…
While materialists could argue that it is still possible to find some kind of meaning in life, in the end there doesn’t seem to be an ultimate purpose in life without some kind of hope that theistic supporters look forward to…